As “One of the city's most watchable performers” (NOW Magazine), Karen Kaeja is Co-artistic director of Kaeja d’Dance with life partner Allen Kaeja. With an honors BFA from York University, she performs for stage and film in major festivals and venues across Canada and around the world. Karen is included in the Canadian Who's Who Encyclopedia, has won the Moving Pictures Award for Best Performance, the 2005 Paul D. Fleck Fellowship as one of Canada’s innovative artists of excellence, and with Allen, was nominated for the 10th annual American Choreography Awards.
“One of Toronto’s top Improvisers” (Toronto Life), Karen has conceived performance events for Toronto’s Distillery Jazz Festival, Nuit Blanche 2007 at the Casa Loma Stables which was the “#1 Greatest Hit of Nuit Blanche” and “left visitors spellbound, and haunted” (Toronto Star), and she co-founded/directed the Festival of Interactive Physics(FIP). She has been commissioned as an artist who "paints portraits with moving bodies" (Toronto Star), for dancers in Sweden, India, Canada, as well as STDT and CCDT. Karen has originated roles for Kaeja d’Dance, Jody Oberfelder (NYC), Randy Glynn Dance Project, Holly Small, Kathleen Rea, Rebecca Todd, Jane Mappin, Eryn Trudell, Marie-Josée Chartier, Claudia Moore and Maxine Heppner, among others. The Kaejas’ commissioned lifeDUETs have toured globally including Portugal,
Mexico, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain and in Chennai, India.
Distinguished in NOW Magazine’s top ten dance artists as a “champion of contact dance”, she has been on faculty at the schools of Toronto Dance Theatre and has taught at York, Ryerson, and other universities in North America. Allen and Karen were the first teachers of Contact Dance at Canada’s National Ballet School. As a dance educator, she has developed the EXPRESS DANCE approach with Allen, which provides accessible outreach programs to under served communities in partnership with the TDSB and TCDSB. Their book, EXPRESS DANCE: Educators’ Resource for Teaching Dance, consolidates their approach to education in the public school system.
Karen and Allen are featured in various television documentaries including the Gemini nominated Bravo! Freedom series on Canadian dance. Their passion for dance on screen has led them to sixteen dance films together garnering international awards, and nominations for a Gemini and a Banff World Television Award. They have initiated the MADance Screen Salon, hosting Canadian dance on film. Upcoming commissions include Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival, Dusk Dances, VIVID, and Nuit Blanche 2008. Among new initiatives are the completion of a Bravo!FACT dance film, and a Vancouver creation residency for the premier of ‘Abattoir’ – a collaboration between some of the city’s finest and fiery artists premiering in March 2008.
Karen has mentored many emerging artists - including Kd’D2 and continues to dedicate her career to the pursuit of excellence in contemporary dance, education & film, while devoting her efforts towards integrating new public communities into the continued celebration and success of the Canadian dance scene.
